Orawa dialect

The Orawa dialect (Polish: gwara orawska) belongs to the Lesser Poland dialect group and is located in part of Poland and Slovakia. It is in part one of the dialects that belongs to the Goral ethnolect. It borders the Żywiec dialect to the far northwest, the Babia Góra dialect to the north, and the Podhale dialect to the east. The Orawa dialect is partially found in Poland with 14 settlements, and partially found in Slovakia with 11. The use of dialect here is strong, and the effects of Standard Polish are weaker than in other regions.

While many Polish linguists describe the Orawa dialect as a variety of Lesser Poland Polish, some Slovak linguists argue that the Orawa speech forms constitute a Polish–Slovak transitional dialect. According to this view, the dialect has a Lesser Poland (Polish) origin, but through long-term and intensive contact with Slovak-speaking populations, especially within the historical context of the Kingdom of Hungary, it has developed numerous Slovak phonological, morphological, and syntactic features, resulting in a transitional character between Polish and Slovak.